Original - One-shot - Purple Hills
Apr. 29th, 2006 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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snippetsTitle: Purple Hills
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
parsnip_chan
Fandom: Original
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, Drama, General
Wordcount: 4731
Pairing(s): Arie/Damon
Summary: There came a time when the task of cataloguing the dreams and hopes of an entire world fell unto the slender shoulders of a young girl and the task of warden fell to an equally as young boy. Estranged, they each feel the bitter bite of a destiny they never wanted as they travel the unceasing road of duty. When they meet, will they give in to fate or attempt to make one of their own?
Author's note: This is written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fictionhaven's April theme of 'Fairytale' and is also based off of a dream I had back in March. Hopefully, I was able to make sense out of my dream well enough for my reader's to follow.
Purple Hills
It has been said that long ago two families were created to balance the power of the other. One was given the task of gathering, entrusted to collect and catalog all the knowledge of the world to hold it against the day when all reason and common sense would be lost. They are the warders and the keepers.
The task of reaping was given to the second family. They are the assassins destined to cull the weak from the first and the general denizens of the world, those who take knowledge for selfish gain and make the world an unruly place to live. From this second family arose the judges and the executioner.
But, as with all things, one grows weary of a never ceasing destiny. Only through death could one escape his or her chosen path, but death is an ending, never a beginning. Fate can never be thwarted.
And as with all things destined to walk the same path, there came a time when the task of cataloguing the dreams and hopes of an entire world fell unto the slender shoulders of a young girl and the task of warden fell to an equally as young boy. Thus, our tale begins.
____________________
There were days when Arie hated the unchanging flow of her life. She never asked to be born into a family of bickering fools and selfish egoists. Sometimes, she truly believed she didn’t belong to them. Her parents quarreled constantly over the littlest things. Her siblings took great joy in becoming master craftsmen, lost in their own little worlds of master and apprentice and customers who wish to use their wares.
None cared about the youngest sister. No one thought to ask if she was happy with her life. She was just there or not there, always on the fringe of conversation. A center piece gained more attention then the girl standing next to them.
She had no master craft and no skills to speak of. When others argued the merits of one technique over another, she was left in silence, stuck on the sidelines and always listening in. She hated her life sometimes and the task she was forced to bear alone.
She was the sieve which filtered through the teachings and powerful memories of a thousand upon thousand people who daily persevered at a hundred myriad crafts. She collected the hidden gems of knowledge gleaned from the world, but lacked the understanding and ability to share it. How could she when she lived in a world far removed from everyone else including her family?
Most of her days were spent in the library, diligently recording everything that entered her mind, reading the books of days gone by when she needed a break from the blank awareness transferring words to paper. Her curse was to experience a month or more to one day that passed in her family, locked in an eternal childhood with nothing but the musty smell of parchment and oil lamp to keep her company. It was both her curse and her comfort. It was her sanctuary and her prison.
She both cursed and clung to the gift she had been born with. After all, she was the only one with the ability to sense the thing wisps of magic that allowed her entry into that hidden room lost within the shadows of a sunset. Only she could catch the invisible lifeline it threw out to her, a home away from home when she could no longer stand the estrangement she felt surrounded by strangers.
Except, there was one other who shared the same talent for finding the portal to her domain, the one who was gifted with an equally cursed task. There were times when Arie wished that whoever was cursed to a life of roaming and constant searching would just find her and end the charade she lived. She was tired of living though she looked only fifteen. She was tired of the constant toil and the useless cataloging.
Why must she work so hard to maintain a library no one had the ability to enter? What good would it do? If the whole world disappeared, the library would still be there, silent, and alone and inaccessible. No one would ever be able to benefit from the words carefully scribed. No one would with the gift to read, to write, with a desire to live above instinct would be able to comprehend what was left behind.
It was pointless, her gift, and she yet she still clung to the comfort of ritual, the comfort of familiarity. It was her destiny, after all.
Sighing, she turned her gaze back to her parents. Her mother sat opposite her and her father sat beside her. They were arguing, like always, over the merits of artistic value and practicality. They were always at odds. It made her wonder how in the world they got together long enough to have six children.
It was so annoying.
Turning back to look out the window of the carriage as it flew along the beaten road, she had to wonder just what it was that she had done in a past life to be stuck traveling with her parents to some wayward town in the middle of nowhere so father could collect samples for his garden and her mother could paint the local scenery.
She could say one thing at least. It really was breathtaking outside.
A small, smile flitted across Arie’s face as she took in the mist-enshrouded hills stretching past her. The light from the slowly setting sun glinted off the surface of land in ribbons, revealing a complex mishmash of hidden eddies amongst the purple hued grass growing from the marshes. She could see the thin silhouette of a crane flying across the sky, lit by the dying sun; her heart ached with the tranquil vision.
In the next life, she hoped to become one of those cranes flying so freely on the wind and surveying everything beneath her. What did the world look like when viewed through those pale eyes? Would she see flashes of color, a dazzling array of light reflected across the immeasurable bodies of water she would fly over? Would she feel carefree and unburdened? Would her heart every stop overflowing with the sense of freedom?
Turning back to her parents, relieved to see them still deep in conversation, she gently pried open the carriage door and squeezed her body through the tiny opening, careful to brace herself against the wind as the carriage slowly wended it’s away across the marshes. The driver was too lulled by the rocking carriage to notice her departure, and her parents to focused on arguing to sense her leave taking.
Crawling along the carriage edge, she worked her way to the back. Sitting down on the edge of the carriage boot, she soaked in the sunset and the cool breeze that caressed her skin. Such moments of peace were so difficult to find. Slowly, she released her breath to relax her tense muscles from too much talking, too much listening; Arie let go of all the anxiety the enclosed conditions had instilled within.
Breathing in deeply once more, she took special note of the smells drifting on the wind, unknown spices to soothe her soul. Exhaling, she took delight in the controlled movement of her lungs. Over and over again, she drank in the sights, the smells, the wonderful soothing sounds of the horses steadily trotting through the countryside and the gentle rhythm of cicadas strumming to their hearts content.
Eventually, the sun vanished, leaving the stars behind to lull the tired to sleep, but Arie had no desire to give in to phantom arms no matter how they beckoned. Peace so often eluded her and rarely did she have a moment to bask in such beauty. She needed these moments to brace herself against the long hours she would spend inside the library, forever toiling.
She needed to store the memories away like the precious elixir of life they were.
But as the night grew older, her eyes grew tired. She could not fight against the sleep that beckoned and cajoled her closer to oblivion. And as she finally gave into slumber’s spell, she pulled the wisps of energy around her to open up the gate to her hidden domain and fell into its soft embrace.
____________________
He was lost, and he was cold. Damon was tired of traveling without aim through the countryside, looking for an elusive thing he didn’t even know how to recognize. All he wanted was to settle down and bask in the warmth of security. He did not want to forge for food, always hungry. He had been sent out by his family after years of instruction in survival and armed combat for a destiny he never wanted.
What right did his parents have to tell him he was created to kill a person he knew nothing about? What right did they have to tell him he must murder someone for something so innocuous sounding as writing a bunch of books? It made no sense to his sixteen year old mind, and it still made no sense after four years of roaming.
He had tried to settle down a few times before, but each lasted for only a little while, a few months at most. Always, always, his feet would itch and lead him down the road to never return. He would sleep walk for days until at last he awoke in a strange land he’d never traveled in before. It was inconvenient and tiring, and he hated it.
Now, his goal was to find the man as quickly as possible so he could do away with destiny and forge his own path. It was all he wanted in this cold world.
But he was tired.
Trudging down the well cleared path as the first lights of dawn began to creep across the horizon, he wondered at the incessant need of his to be up and moving so early in the morning and late into the evening. No matter how long he laid there, he could never fall back asleep. It was so annoying.
Snarling, he readjusted the sword that was seemingly thrust haphazardly into the sash at his waist. The sword was surprisingly light in his hands but the burden of the promise it encompassed weighed heavily on him. The bow resting against his shoulder was more comforting. With it, he could survive year round on the game it could catch. On the other shoulder lied all his worldly possessions, a knapsack holding his one change of clothing and a blanket. A nearly empty money pouch rested against his hip, signs that times had been harsh on the young lad.
He did not have much to offer except himself, a roaming nomad cursed into exile and hermitage by a fate he could care less about. Settling into a fast paced walk, Damon faced the horizon and marched down the road surrounded by fields of purple hued marshlands and blue-misted mountains.
____________________
A few hours later, a carriage came abreast of the traveler; the horses looked as though they had already been traveling for as long as he had while the sun burned off the fog that had enshrouded the valley for hours. Waving cheerily at the lone driver, he trotted next to the now walking horses. It would be a much appreciated reprieve to catch a ride.
After some wary exchanges and the passing of a few precious coins, Damon found himself hopping onto the back of the carriage, the passengers inside oblivious to the exchange or unable to care with the disappearance of their daughter. From the driver’s terse comment, it seemed as though it as usual for the girl to disappear from time to time.
Shrugging the thought away, he rested his back against the carriage wall and set himself to catching some sleep eye. As the steady gait of the horses began to lull him to sleep, he sensed the wispy strands of filamentous air flowing beside the carriage. Intrigued, he reached out with a single hand to grasp at the strands and pulled.
____________________
She lost track of the time as she worked to finish the last chapter of a blacksmith’s life; her mind emptied of all thought except those that were never hers. Always, she worked, and always she felt nothing. Not even the softness of parchment beneath her fingertips or the smooth shaft of a pen could penetrate the deep void she drifted into. Naught was allowed to interfere with the purity of the words that flowed from that untouchable depository of knowledge within. Neither hunger nor thirst had any meaning here in this nonexistent world, but Arie had not expected the distraction that would visit her on that unnamable day.
With a thump that mirrored the jump in her heart, something fell from the air to the wooden floorboards of her hidden domain. Her fingers snapped the quill in half, leaving it fall unheeded unto the parchment where it smudged the still wet ink before clattering to the ground. Terrified at the unexpected invasion, Arie looked over her shoulder and strove to pierce the darkness covering the room.
It was a young boy who interrupted her chain of thought, and she felt ire that he could so innocuously sleep through his loud entrance. He was sprawled out with a one arm lying across his chest and the other resting next to him. He was fully garbed and looked slightly uncomfortable with a bow digging into his shoulder and the sword at his waist straining against its bonds.
She could only guess one reason why such a man would be resting so benignly on her floor. He must have stumbled onto the tell-tale wisps of energy left behind from her passage through the gates. She was the only one she knew of who could find her way here, and since this boy was a complete stranger, he must be the one with a just as tiresome fate as her own.
She nearly pitied him as her heart slowed and muscles relaxed.
Little by little, she quietly crept closer to him, work forgotten for the moment. He looked worn and road weary, but his face seemed kind despite the wind-chapped flesh. His skin seemed abnormally dark compared to hers, pale from years spent toiling in the darkness. There was something about the eyes though, the tiny wrinkles already forming despite the youth he so obviously possessed. They spoke of determination.
As resignation once again crept over her flesh, she wondered if perhaps she had known this would happen soon. Life had grown so tedious.
____________________
Groaning, Damon rubbed at his eyes, back aching against the hardness of the ground beneath him. It had been a long time since he had been able to sleep so deeply. Stretching as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he took comfort in the flickering light that caressed the ceiling above him. He always loved fire; it was often his only companion on long nights with little else to do but talk to the uncaring flames. It made him feel less alone.
Following the orange hued light, he turned onto his side, hypnotized into seeking the source of the flame for he felt no warmth of a nearby fire. Only the thick blanket which covered him kept him from being chilled. As his eyes settled on the oil lamp, his heart sped up as awareness fought to penetrate the relaxing aura that surrounded him.
A young woman sat next to the oil lamp, writing away with smooth, steady strokes. Her black bound hair glinted in the lamp light, and her foot tapped with idleness. This woman must have been the one he was sent to extinguish. This girl who looked to young to be even half as dangerous as his parents had so often cautioned.
What was there to fear from a woman younger then himself? It was not possible. It had to be impossible.
Quietly, he sat up, noting that his possessions had been removed but kindly left close at hand. The first few stays of his tunic had been loosened that he might breathe more deeply in slumber. A pillow rested beneath his head and his boots had been removed for comfort. This girl had to know why he was here, right?
She could not be so innocent to think he was incapable of pursing destiny to the end. Not when freedom was so close at hand.
Standing, he reached for his sword and gently unsheathed it; the movement made no sound as his teachers had taught him so long ago. The element of surprise had to be kept at all costs. Creeping closer to the pocket of light, he willed his heart to slow and take less notice of her youth. He had no choice but to go through with fate’s plan. If he didn’t, then there was no hope for a normal life ever again. Could he ever be so lucky as to stumble upon this place twice in his lifetime?
He thought not.
Only a few feet away from his victim, he heard the most wretched sound he had heard in ages. Acceptance.
“Please, wait another hour so I can finish this book. I am nearly done and then you may do as you wish. I will not stop you.”
She neither turned her head nor ceased her slow careful movements as she exchanged one page for a fresh one. Mortified, he slowly backed away, carefully angling his body to catch a glimpse of her face to see if she was truly as untouchable as she seemed.
What fool would wish for death so clearly?
As her profile gently came into view, her head lifted slightly to follow the movement of her hand as it dipped once again into an ink jar and back. Watching her, he grew perplexed at the determined angles that shaped it. Her brow was furrowed lightly in concentration, her eyes trained on the task at hand. Her lips moved slowly as she repeated the words she wrote with ease across the page. She seemed absorbed in her task and yet she had sensed his movement as he made his away across the floor boards.
He would have to ask her how that was done before his blade drew blood.
As the minutes passed, he settled against another chair, noticing that the table next to him contained another book whose pages were spread out to dry, the ink glistening in the lamplight. Sheathing his sword, he continued to watch the unrelenting face of the creature he had been told could shape all humanity in his, well her own image.
He never suspected his nemesis would be a woman. Always, he had assumed it would be another man. Did he have it within him to snuff out the soul of womanly youth? He would discover an answer shortly.
As the wick slowly burned away from long use, she at last put the finishing touch on the book. Leaving it to dry on the stand, he heard her murmur her apologies for not binding it together, and assured it that sooner or later, another would come and finish the job. It comforted him to know that she too talked to the things around her.
Smiling as she stood, she approached the man she had watched sleeping and had even attended to before finishing her current project. He had slept longer then she had expected, and it had comforted her to hear his soft breathing in the void of the darkness that surrounded her constantly even though it distracted her from the task at hand. There were usually no sounds except her own to fill the stillness.
“I am finished if you are ready to take my life. That is why you were able to find me in this place, right?”
Damon gazed up at the woman before him, uncomfortable with the thought. “Why is a woman as young as yourself so resigned to death? Shouldn’t you be yearning for love and a family to call your own? Shouldn’t you be yearning for something other then this?”
Arie smiled bitterly. “I do yearn for it which is why I am ready for this death. I want to feel freedom in my next life and not waste it in the empty years spent here.” Her fists clenched as she took an additional step towards him. “Please, tell me you’re the one who was sent to kill me!”
Gulping, he could do nothing but stare into her pleading eyes as he slowly unsheathed his sword once again. A heavy weight settled into the pit of his stomach as she fell to the floor with a relieved thump.
Bowing her head to hide the tears in her eyes, she presented her unfettered neck to the edge of his sword, waiting for that fatal blow to occur, and as she waited, she gathered those nebulous strands of energy into the gate between this hidden chamber and the world he had come from. Releasing them, she noted with satisfaction the lingering wisps of energy which would allow him to leave this place when he was done, when she was free to start a new life.
Startled at the bending air around him, he watched as an arch appeared and faded into oblivion. Only a few strands of air seemed to linger in its place, familiar to him though his mind was fuzzy on the how or when.
Her soft whisper penetrated his stumbling thoughts. “Just pull on the air to bring the mesh back together. It will lead you back home.”
Lead weighing his movements down, he marveled at the care she took to ensure his safe keeping. This was not an evil woman. This was someone who was merely tired of her fate much as he was his. Slowly, lead making his sword ten times heavier, he raised it above her head, poised to take her life with the simple relaxation of his muscles.
And as he gazed down at her, he let his arms fall.
With a solid thunk, the sword bit deep into the wood leaving a gasping woman staring mere inches away from the gleaming, silver surface of Damon’s blade. She was still alive, untouched. Gentle hands raised her face, pulling her shuddering frame into an equally shuddering masculine one.
“I can’t do it. I just can’t.”
They held each other for a long time that night.
____________________
Thus, their days passed in silence with Arie working at writing her books and Damon watching her bent back. Sometimes he used the quiet solitude to read one or two of the ageless tomes, marveling at the detail and care that went into the binding and the writing. With time, he began to get a feel for the woman who so tirelessly toiled in front of him through the words she catalogued and the hesitant conversation they shared as they whiled the hours of rest away.
She was kind and well informed. She took her destiny seriously and because of it had amassed a thousand or so such volumes. He began to understand the cruelty of her curse and the necessity of his. Each was so consumed with the endless task of writing and binding and shelving that they lived a whole era in this merciless prison, never aging, never feeling alive.
And he, he was there to free her so that in another life, she might experience all the joys and hardships of being unburdened with agelessness. It scared him, a little, when her face became lax while her pen flowed swiftly over the pages. It scared him when she spent almost a full day bent over the books she wrote never moving except for the repetitive motions of flipping pages and the brush of her pen across white paper and into the ink pot.
She was grateful for the comfort his presence brought her and for the excitement she felt whenever he gently touched her shoulder with the intent of bringing her out of her daze. Their relationship was odd, true, but his feet never itched to move, and her soul reveled in the chance to share her solitude, even if one day he would have to take up his sword and end her life.
At times, when the urge to revel in the touch of sun on skin or warm meat in their tummies, they would leave their oasis and venture into the purple hills for hours at a time, relaxing and sharing tiny tidbits of nothing and everything. They spent weeks of life in a single night watching the march of the moon and stars across the sky and a month racing across the marshes.
For a brief moment in her life, Arie felt the freedom of the cranes that flew across the sky.
____________________
They say that all things must come to an end, and a year of living in solitude was to short by far. The day came when on one of their tireless walks through the open fields led them to speak of hidden things, unspoken things. In a dance of words, they wove a tale of living quietly among the soft grasses and living off the land they claimed as their own. They spoke haltingly of peace and growing old together rather then staying forever young, preserved like the books they took such pains to care for.
And in their hopeless dreams they shared a kiss that lead to other things. Feelings fueled with a desperate desire to share something that only they could share and reproduce. It was a child’s desire and an adult’s understanding that all things change and not always for the better. And soon after that moment, Arie and Damon used the archway to visit her parents with the declaration that they were through with destiny and fate.
They wished to start a new pattern of existence in which they lived together rather then died together. They wished to have the freedom of the night and the comfort of the day and no prodding to end a curse. But Arie’s parents were unwilling to listen to reason. They saw a boy with a sword and a girl who was to naïve to be allowed to determine her heart’s desire. In fear, they tackled the boy and carried him off to an unknown destination.
Arie was broken hearted, and Damon limp with defeat from the severe beating he withstood in an attempt to return to her side.
It is said that they still search for each other even though it’s been many years since they were cruelly separated. Others claim they’ve caught glimpse of a man with ragged clothing and a sword strapped to his back still roaming these hills. Each time, just a glimpse of a silhouette, the reflection of metal in the moonlight betrays his presence. Still more claim that they’ve seen a young man standing on the top of a hillside, watching the cranes fly across the sky with a longing expression.
He continues to roam, forever searching for the one he was destined to kill but fell in love with instead. At times, it has also been hinted that a young girl will wander into a village to buy a handful of cherries. Her expression is hopeful; her demeanor is shy. She chats with the shopkeeper, and asks for a boy with long hair and a silver sword.
She is always left disappointed, knowing nothing more then rumors upon rumors.
It is said that one day, when the world forgets their names that they will meet again in the marshlands where they first made love, and there they will end the cycle of their destiny and live their lives together in the wilderness they each grew to know so intimately well. The key to the ancient library will be lost for all time, an end to the gathering at last.
And one day, when the world needs it most, their children will remember the hidden talents and help rebuild a world that was destroyed by the greed and selfish pride of their fellow man. After all, we are only human.
The End
Also, character sketches (ie poems) can be found at this post, if you're so inclined to look at them.
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Author:
parsnip_chanFandom: Original
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, Drama, General
Wordcount: 4731
Pairing(s): Arie/Damon
Summary: There came a time when the task of cataloguing the dreams and hopes of an entire world fell unto the slender shoulders of a young girl and the task of warden fell to an equally as young boy. Estranged, they each feel the bitter bite of a destiny they never wanted as they travel the unceasing road of duty. When they meet, will they give in to fate or attempt to make one of their own?
Author's note: This is written for
fictionhaven's April theme of 'Fairytale' and is also based off of a dream I had back in March. Hopefully, I was able to make sense out of my dream well enough for my reader's to follow. It has been said that long ago two families were created to balance the power of the other. One was given the task of gathering, entrusted to collect and catalog all the knowledge of the world to hold it against the day when all reason and common sense would be lost. They are the warders and the keepers.
The task of reaping was given to the second family. They are the assassins destined to cull the weak from the first and the general denizens of the world, those who take knowledge for selfish gain and make the world an unruly place to live. From this second family arose the judges and the executioner.
But, as with all things, one grows weary of a never ceasing destiny. Only through death could one escape his or her chosen path, but death is an ending, never a beginning. Fate can never be thwarted.
And as with all things destined to walk the same path, there came a time when the task of cataloguing the dreams and hopes of an entire world fell unto the slender shoulders of a young girl and the task of warden fell to an equally as young boy. Thus, our tale begins.
There were days when Arie hated the unchanging flow of her life. She never asked to be born into a family of bickering fools and selfish egoists. Sometimes, she truly believed she didn’t belong to them. Her parents quarreled constantly over the littlest things. Her siblings took great joy in becoming master craftsmen, lost in their own little worlds of master and apprentice and customers who wish to use their wares.
None cared about the youngest sister. No one thought to ask if she was happy with her life. She was just there or not there, always on the fringe of conversation. A center piece gained more attention then the girl standing next to them.
She had no master craft and no skills to speak of. When others argued the merits of one technique over another, she was left in silence, stuck on the sidelines and always listening in. She hated her life sometimes and the task she was forced to bear alone.
She was the sieve which filtered through the teachings and powerful memories of a thousand upon thousand people who daily persevered at a hundred myriad crafts. She collected the hidden gems of knowledge gleaned from the world, but lacked the understanding and ability to share it. How could she when she lived in a world far removed from everyone else including her family?
Most of her days were spent in the library, diligently recording everything that entered her mind, reading the books of days gone by when she needed a break from the blank awareness transferring words to paper. Her curse was to experience a month or more to one day that passed in her family, locked in an eternal childhood with nothing but the musty smell of parchment and oil lamp to keep her company. It was both her curse and her comfort. It was her sanctuary and her prison.
She both cursed and clung to the gift she had been born with. After all, she was the only one with the ability to sense the thing wisps of magic that allowed her entry into that hidden room lost within the shadows of a sunset. Only she could catch the invisible lifeline it threw out to her, a home away from home when she could no longer stand the estrangement she felt surrounded by strangers.
Except, there was one other who shared the same talent for finding the portal to her domain, the one who was gifted with an equally cursed task. There were times when Arie wished that whoever was cursed to a life of roaming and constant searching would just find her and end the charade she lived. She was tired of living though she looked only fifteen. She was tired of the constant toil and the useless cataloging.
Why must she work so hard to maintain a library no one had the ability to enter? What good would it do? If the whole world disappeared, the library would still be there, silent, and alone and inaccessible. No one would ever be able to benefit from the words carefully scribed. No one would with the gift to read, to write, with a desire to live above instinct would be able to comprehend what was left behind.
It was pointless, her gift, and she yet she still clung to the comfort of ritual, the comfort of familiarity. It was her destiny, after all.
Sighing, she turned her gaze back to her parents. Her mother sat opposite her and her father sat beside her. They were arguing, like always, over the merits of artistic value and practicality. They were always at odds. It made her wonder how in the world they got together long enough to have six children.
It was so annoying.
Turning back to look out the window of the carriage as it flew along the beaten road, she had to wonder just what it was that she had done in a past life to be stuck traveling with her parents to some wayward town in the middle of nowhere so father could collect samples for his garden and her mother could paint the local scenery.
She could say one thing at least. It really was breathtaking outside.
A small, smile flitted across Arie’s face as she took in the mist-enshrouded hills stretching past her. The light from the slowly setting sun glinted off the surface of land in ribbons, revealing a complex mishmash of hidden eddies amongst the purple hued grass growing from the marshes. She could see the thin silhouette of a crane flying across the sky, lit by the dying sun; her heart ached with the tranquil vision.
In the next life, she hoped to become one of those cranes flying so freely on the wind and surveying everything beneath her. What did the world look like when viewed through those pale eyes? Would she see flashes of color, a dazzling array of light reflected across the immeasurable bodies of water she would fly over? Would she feel carefree and unburdened? Would her heart every stop overflowing with the sense of freedom?
Turning back to her parents, relieved to see them still deep in conversation, she gently pried open the carriage door and squeezed her body through the tiny opening, careful to brace herself against the wind as the carriage slowly wended it’s away across the marshes. The driver was too lulled by the rocking carriage to notice her departure, and her parents to focused on arguing to sense her leave taking.
Crawling along the carriage edge, she worked her way to the back. Sitting down on the edge of the carriage boot, she soaked in the sunset and the cool breeze that caressed her skin. Such moments of peace were so difficult to find. Slowly, she released her breath to relax her tense muscles from too much talking, too much listening; Arie let go of all the anxiety the enclosed conditions had instilled within.
Breathing in deeply once more, she took special note of the smells drifting on the wind, unknown spices to soothe her soul. Exhaling, she took delight in the controlled movement of her lungs. Over and over again, she drank in the sights, the smells, the wonderful soothing sounds of the horses steadily trotting through the countryside and the gentle rhythm of cicadas strumming to their hearts content.
Eventually, the sun vanished, leaving the stars behind to lull the tired to sleep, but Arie had no desire to give in to phantom arms no matter how they beckoned. Peace so often eluded her and rarely did she have a moment to bask in such beauty. She needed these moments to brace herself against the long hours she would spend inside the library, forever toiling.
She needed to store the memories away like the precious elixir of life they were.
But as the night grew older, her eyes grew tired. She could not fight against the sleep that beckoned and cajoled her closer to oblivion. And as she finally gave into slumber’s spell, she pulled the wisps of energy around her to open up the gate to her hidden domain and fell into its soft embrace.
He was lost, and he was cold. Damon was tired of traveling without aim through the countryside, looking for an elusive thing he didn’t even know how to recognize. All he wanted was to settle down and bask in the warmth of security. He did not want to forge for food, always hungry. He had been sent out by his family after years of instruction in survival and armed combat for a destiny he never wanted.
What right did his parents have to tell him he was created to kill a person he knew nothing about? What right did they have to tell him he must murder someone for something so innocuous sounding as writing a bunch of books? It made no sense to his sixteen year old mind, and it still made no sense after four years of roaming.
He had tried to settle down a few times before, but each lasted for only a little while, a few months at most. Always, always, his feet would itch and lead him down the road to never return. He would sleep walk for days until at last he awoke in a strange land he’d never traveled in before. It was inconvenient and tiring, and he hated it.
Now, his goal was to find the man as quickly as possible so he could do away with destiny and forge his own path. It was all he wanted in this cold world.
But he was tired.
Trudging down the well cleared path as the first lights of dawn began to creep across the horizon, he wondered at the incessant need of his to be up and moving so early in the morning and late into the evening. No matter how long he laid there, he could never fall back asleep. It was so annoying.
Snarling, he readjusted the sword that was seemingly thrust haphazardly into the sash at his waist. The sword was surprisingly light in his hands but the burden of the promise it encompassed weighed heavily on him. The bow resting against his shoulder was more comforting. With it, he could survive year round on the game it could catch. On the other shoulder lied all his worldly possessions, a knapsack holding his one change of clothing and a blanket. A nearly empty money pouch rested against his hip, signs that times had been harsh on the young lad.
He did not have much to offer except himself, a roaming nomad cursed into exile and hermitage by a fate he could care less about. Settling into a fast paced walk, Damon faced the horizon and marched down the road surrounded by fields of purple hued marshlands and blue-misted mountains.
A few hours later, a carriage came abreast of the traveler; the horses looked as though they had already been traveling for as long as he had while the sun burned off the fog that had enshrouded the valley for hours. Waving cheerily at the lone driver, he trotted next to the now walking horses. It would be a much appreciated reprieve to catch a ride.
After some wary exchanges and the passing of a few precious coins, Damon found himself hopping onto the back of the carriage, the passengers inside oblivious to the exchange or unable to care with the disappearance of their daughter. From the driver’s terse comment, it seemed as though it as usual for the girl to disappear from time to time.
Shrugging the thought away, he rested his back against the carriage wall and set himself to catching some sleep eye. As the steady gait of the horses began to lull him to sleep, he sensed the wispy strands of filamentous air flowing beside the carriage. Intrigued, he reached out with a single hand to grasp at the strands and pulled.
She lost track of the time as she worked to finish the last chapter of a blacksmith’s life; her mind emptied of all thought except those that were never hers. Always, she worked, and always she felt nothing. Not even the softness of parchment beneath her fingertips or the smooth shaft of a pen could penetrate the deep void she drifted into. Naught was allowed to interfere with the purity of the words that flowed from that untouchable depository of knowledge within. Neither hunger nor thirst had any meaning here in this nonexistent world, but Arie had not expected the distraction that would visit her on that unnamable day.
With a thump that mirrored the jump in her heart, something fell from the air to the wooden floorboards of her hidden domain. Her fingers snapped the quill in half, leaving it fall unheeded unto the parchment where it smudged the still wet ink before clattering to the ground. Terrified at the unexpected invasion, Arie looked over her shoulder and strove to pierce the darkness covering the room.
It was a young boy who interrupted her chain of thought, and she felt ire that he could so innocuously sleep through his loud entrance. He was sprawled out with a one arm lying across his chest and the other resting next to him. He was fully garbed and looked slightly uncomfortable with a bow digging into his shoulder and the sword at his waist straining against its bonds.
She could only guess one reason why such a man would be resting so benignly on her floor. He must have stumbled onto the tell-tale wisps of energy left behind from her passage through the gates. She was the only one she knew of who could find her way here, and since this boy was a complete stranger, he must be the one with a just as tiresome fate as her own.
She nearly pitied him as her heart slowed and muscles relaxed.
Little by little, she quietly crept closer to him, work forgotten for the moment. He looked worn and road weary, but his face seemed kind despite the wind-chapped flesh. His skin seemed abnormally dark compared to hers, pale from years spent toiling in the darkness. There was something about the eyes though, the tiny wrinkles already forming despite the youth he so obviously possessed. They spoke of determination.
As resignation once again crept over her flesh, she wondered if perhaps she had known this would happen soon. Life had grown so tedious.
Groaning, Damon rubbed at his eyes, back aching against the hardness of the ground beneath him. It had been a long time since he had been able to sleep so deeply. Stretching as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he took comfort in the flickering light that caressed the ceiling above him. He always loved fire; it was often his only companion on long nights with little else to do but talk to the uncaring flames. It made him feel less alone.
Following the orange hued light, he turned onto his side, hypnotized into seeking the source of the flame for he felt no warmth of a nearby fire. Only the thick blanket which covered him kept him from being chilled. As his eyes settled on the oil lamp, his heart sped up as awareness fought to penetrate the relaxing aura that surrounded him.
A young woman sat next to the oil lamp, writing away with smooth, steady strokes. Her black bound hair glinted in the lamp light, and her foot tapped with idleness. This woman must have been the one he was sent to extinguish. This girl who looked to young to be even half as dangerous as his parents had so often cautioned.
What was there to fear from a woman younger then himself? It was not possible. It had to be impossible.
Quietly, he sat up, noting that his possessions had been removed but kindly left close at hand. The first few stays of his tunic had been loosened that he might breathe more deeply in slumber. A pillow rested beneath his head and his boots had been removed for comfort. This girl had to know why he was here, right?
She could not be so innocent to think he was incapable of pursing destiny to the end. Not when freedom was so close at hand.
Standing, he reached for his sword and gently unsheathed it; the movement made no sound as his teachers had taught him so long ago. The element of surprise had to be kept at all costs. Creeping closer to the pocket of light, he willed his heart to slow and take less notice of her youth. He had no choice but to go through with fate’s plan. If he didn’t, then there was no hope for a normal life ever again. Could he ever be so lucky as to stumble upon this place twice in his lifetime?
He thought not.
Only a few feet away from his victim, he heard the most wretched sound he had heard in ages. Acceptance.
“Please, wait another hour so I can finish this book. I am nearly done and then you may do as you wish. I will not stop you.”
She neither turned her head nor ceased her slow careful movements as she exchanged one page for a fresh one. Mortified, he slowly backed away, carefully angling his body to catch a glimpse of her face to see if she was truly as untouchable as she seemed.
What fool would wish for death so clearly?
As her profile gently came into view, her head lifted slightly to follow the movement of her hand as it dipped once again into an ink jar and back. Watching her, he grew perplexed at the determined angles that shaped it. Her brow was furrowed lightly in concentration, her eyes trained on the task at hand. Her lips moved slowly as she repeated the words she wrote with ease across the page. She seemed absorbed in her task and yet she had sensed his movement as he made his away across the floor boards.
He would have to ask her how that was done before his blade drew blood.
As the minutes passed, he settled against another chair, noticing that the table next to him contained another book whose pages were spread out to dry, the ink glistening in the lamplight. Sheathing his sword, he continued to watch the unrelenting face of the creature he had been told could shape all humanity in his, well her own image.
He never suspected his nemesis would be a woman. Always, he had assumed it would be another man. Did he have it within him to snuff out the soul of womanly youth? He would discover an answer shortly.
As the wick slowly burned away from long use, she at last put the finishing touch on the book. Leaving it to dry on the stand, he heard her murmur her apologies for not binding it together, and assured it that sooner or later, another would come and finish the job. It comforted him to know that she too talked to the things around her.
Smiling as she stood, she approached the man she had watched sleeping and had even attended to before finishing her current project. He had slept longer then she had expected, and it had comforted her to hear his soft breathing in the void of the darkness that surrounded her constantly even though it distracted her from the task at hand. There were usually no sounds except her own to fill the stillness.
“I am finished if you are ready to take my life. That is why you were able to find me in this place, right?”
Damon gazed up at the woman before him, uncomfortable with the thought. “Why is a woman as young as yourself so resigned to death? Shouldn’t you be yearning for love and a family to call your own? Shouldn’t you be yearning for something other then this?”
Arie smiled bitterly. “I do yearn for it which is why I am ready for this death. I want to feel freedom in my next life and not waste it in the empty years spent here.” Her fists clenched as she took an additional step towards him. “Please, tell me you’re the one who was sent to kill me!”
Gulping, he could do nothing but stare into her pleading eyes as he slowly unsheathed his sword once again. A heavy weight settled into the pit of his stomach as she fell to the floor with a relieved thump.
Bowing her head to hide the tears in her eyes, she presented her unfettered neck to the edge of his sword, waiting for that fatal blow to occur, and as she waited, she gathered those nebulous strands of energy into the gate between this hidden chamber and the world he had come from. Releasing them, she noted with satisfaction the lingering wisps of energy which would allow him to leave this place when he was done, when she was free to start a new life.
Startled at the bending air around him, he watched as an arch appeared and faded into oblivion. Only a few strands of air seemed to linger in its place, familiar to him though his mind was fuzzy on the how or when.
Her soft whisper penetrated his stumbling thoughts. “Just pull on the air to bring the mesh back together. It will lead you back home.”
Lead weighing his movements down, he marveled at the care she took to ensure his safe keeping. This was not an evil woman. This was someone who was merely tired of her fate much as he was his. Slowly, lead making his sword ten times heavier, he raised it above her head, poised to take her life with the simple relaxation of his muscles.
And as he gazed down at her, he let his arms fall.
With a solid thunk, the sword bit deep into the wood leaving a gasping woman staring mere inches away from the gleaming, silver surface of Damon’s blade. She was still alive, untouched. Gentle hands raised her face, pulling her shuddering frame into an equally shuddering masculine one.
“I can’t do it. I just can’t.”
They held each other for a long time that night.
Thus, their days passed in silence with Arie working at writing her books and Damon watching her bent back. Sometimes he used the quiet solitude to read one or two of the ageless tomes, marveling at the detail and care that went into the binding and the writing. With time, he began to get a feel for the woman who so tirelessly toiled in front of him through the words she catalogued and the hesitant conversation they shared as they whiled the hours of rest away.
She was kind and well informed. She took her destiny seriously and because of it had amassed a thousand or so such volumes. He began to understand the cruelty of her curse and the necessity of his. Each was so consumed with the endless task of writing and binding and shelving that they lived a whole era in this merciless prison, never aging, never feeling alive.
And he, he was there to free her so that in another life, she might experience all the joys and hardships of being unburdened with agelessness. It scared him, a little, when her face became lax while her pen flowed swiftly over the pages. It scared him when she spent almost a full day bent over the books she wrote never moving except for the repetitive motions of flipping pages and the brush of her pen across white paper and into the ink pot.
She was grateful for the comfort his presence brought her and for the excitement she felt whenever he gently touched her shoulder with the intent of bringing her out of her daze. Their relationship was odd, true, but his feet never itched to move, and her soul reveled in the chance to share her solitude, even if one day he would have to take up his sword and end her life.
At times, when the urge to revel in the touch of sun on skin or warm meat in their tummies, they would leave their oasis and venture into the purple hills for hours at a time, relaxing and sharing tiny tidbits of nothing and everything. They spent weeks of life in a single night watching the march of the moon and stars across the sky and a month racing across the marshes.
For a brief moment in her life, Arie felt the freedom of the cranes that flew across the sky.
They say that all things must come to an end, and a year of living in solitude was to short by far. The day came when on one of their tireless walks through the open fields led them to speak of hidden things, unspoken things. In a dance of words, they wove a tale of living quietly among the soft grasses and living off the land they claimed as their own. They spoke haltingly of peace and growing old together rather then staying forever young, preserved like the books they took such pains to care for.
And in their hopeless dreams they shared a kiss that lead to other things. Feelings fueled with a desperate desire to share something that only they could share and reproduce. It was a child’s desire and an adult’s understanding that all things change and not always for the better. And soon after that moment, Arie and Damon used the archway to visit her parents with the declaration that they were through with destiny and fate.
They wished to start a new pattern of existence in which they lived together rather then died together. They wished to have the freedom of the night and the comfort of the day and no prodding to end a curse. But Arie’s parents were unwilling to listen to reason. They saw a boy with a sword and a girl who was to naïve to be allowed to determine her heart’s desire. In fear, they tackled the boy and carried him off to an unknown destination.
Arie was broken hearted, and Damon limp with defeat from the severe beating he withstood in an attempt to return to her side.
It is said that they still search for each other even though it’s been many years since they were cruelly separated. Others claim they’ve caught glimpse of a man with ragged clothing and a sword strapped to his back still roaming these hills. Each time, just a glimpse of a silhouette, the reflection of metal in the moonlight betrays his presence. Still more claim that they’ve seen a young man standing on the top of a hillside, watching the cranes fly across the sky with a longing expression.
He continues to roam, forever searching for the one he was destined to kill but fell in love with instead. At times, it has also been hinted that a young girl will wander into a village to buy a handful of cherries. Her expression is hopeful; her demeanor is shy. She chats with the shopkeeper, and asks for a boy with long hair and a silver sword.
She is always left disappointed, knowing nothing more then rumors upon rumors.
It is said that one day, when the world forgets their names that they will meet again in the marshlands where they first made love, and there they will end the cycle of their destiny and live their lives together in the wilderness they each grew to know so intimately well. The key to the ancient library will be lost for all time, an end to the gathering at last.
And one day, when the world needs it most, their children will remember the hidden talents and help rebuild a world that was destroyed by the greed and selfish pride of their fellow man. After all, we are only human.
Also, character sketches (ie poems) can be found at this post, if you're so inclined to look at them.
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Date: 2006-04-30 04:43 am (UTC)